Netflix desperately wants to make its mark on the Oscar race, and in Alfonso Cuaron’s autobiographical “Roma,” it has its strongest contender yet. Yet the streaming service — having roiled the TV business — appears determined to storm the movie-awards competition in similar fashion, which means breaking rules and operating very much on its own terms.

There were two near-takeovers at the Emmys on Monday, as streaming services expanded their impact on the awards, while “Saturday Night Live” permeated the ceremony. The former likely magnified the issue of viewers watching a parade of winners from relatively little-seen programs — with “Game of Thrones” a notable exception — and the latter yielded a flawed, haphazard show, which badly overplayed some of its bits.

Donald Glover’s record label says he’s screwing them over and now they want justice in a court of law. Glassnote Entertainment Group has filed a lawsuit against Childish Gambino claiming he’s aced them out of the loot he’s collected for streaming…

Not a fan of Tidal, Spotify or Apple Music? YouTube might have the music streaming service for you.

YouTube usually the go-to destination for your music video needs announced this week that it will be joining the music streaming wars with YouTube Music. The company calls its latest venture a “new music streaming service made for music with the magic of YouTube” that promises to make searching for music more straightforward and more personalized than ever.

Along with the launch of YouTube Music will be a reimagined mobile app and a brand new desktop player specially designed for music. In addition to their already massive library of music videos, YouTube Music will offer it’s users official versions of millions of songs, thousands of playlists, artist radio and more.

YouTube Music looks to one-up the competition by having remixes, live performances, and covers of songs that can only be found on its service. Another feature the service will offer is a unique search method that allows users to find songs they don’t know the title or by using a term like “that hipster song with whistling” or even the songs lyrics.

The service will also adapt to users in the really cool way. The home screen will adjust based on peoples whereabouts, listening history and what they are doing. If you happen to walk in a gym, YouTube Music will generate a playlist to help get you motivated, or if you happen to be at an airport, the service will make a playlist to help you relax.

Pretty genius, BUT we can foresee some people being uncomfortable with using the feature due to some insecurities with apps tracking you.

Now the big question? How much will the service cost? There is currently an ad-supported version of YouTube Music users can enjoy for free. If you want to go ad-free, there is a YouTube Music Premium subscription available for just $ 9.99 a month. If you’re already a paid subscriber of Google Play Music, you will get a membership to YouTube Music as a part of your subscription.

As of Tuesday, the rollout of the Youtube Music experience has begun in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and South Korea. The service will be expanding broadly and in the coming weeks and will soon be available in Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. If you want to find out when YouTube Music will be available to you in your country, you can head here for more information.

So are you guys excited about YouTube Music? It sounds very appealing and worth the money. Let us know in the comment section below.

The new feature, which will appear in existing Rhapsody and Napster subscribers' Android apps as an update, promises a broad selection of tracks but with no surprises and with no danger of accidentally accessing anything with an ‘explicit Lyrics' label. "As the original streaming music service, we have a deep base of customers that have moved into a new chapter of their life and are hungry for a way to share music with their kids," said Rhapsody CFO, Ethan Rudin.

(AllHipHop News) Tidal has had some rocky moments this year, but the streaming service managed to continue to grow. The company’s part owner, Jay Z, announced Tidal has now reached one million subscribers.

It was revealed in January that Jay put in a $ 56 million bid to purchase Tidal from Schibsted. At the time, the service reportedly had around 530,000 subscribers. Tidal was relaunched in March with several high-profile artists owners such as Beyoncé, Rihanna, Kanye West, Alicia Keys, Nicki Minaj, J. Cole, and Usher.

The platform offered exclusive content such as music/video premieres and live streams of concerts by Jay, Young Jeezy, and Lil Wayne. Tidal also provided the exclusive broadcast of the Made In America festival which featured performances by Beyoncé, The Weeknd, Future, J. Cole, Meek Mill, and more.

(AllHipHop News) Pittsburgh native Mac Miller is set to drop his third studio album GO:OD AM on September 18, but the rapper/producer has now made the LP available to stream on NPR’s First Listen. GO:OD AM features appearances by Ab-Soul, Lil B, Miguel, Chief Keef, and Little Dragon. Production was handled by ID Labs, Sha Money XL, Thundercat, and more.

(AllHipHop News) The streaming wars just got very messy. Tidal exclusively streamed Lil Wayne’s “Lil Weezyana Fest” in New Orleans last night (August 28), and Tunechi brought out several guests including Juvenile, Turk, Mannie Fresh, and Master P. But when Wayne was ready to bring his Young Money artist Drake to the stage, the live stream cut off.

Reports began circulating earlier in the evening that Apple threatened to sue Tidal for $ 20 million if the platform streamed Drake performing. The Toronto native sign a reported $ 19 million exclusive deal with Apple. This fight comes after Tidal financier Jay Z suggested Apple was running a smear campaign against his company back in April.

Lil Wayne is a part owner of Tidal along with other artists such as Beyoncé, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, J. Cole, Kanye West, Madonna, Alicia Keys, and Usher. Proceeds from Wayne’s “Lil Weezyana Fest” were to benefit kids affected by Hurricane Katrina.

“This event is for charity, Drake is doing two songs,” a source told Page Six. “Why does Apple think it can dictate to artists where and when they can perform?”

(Reuters) – Antitrust authorities in Europe failed to find evidence that Apple Inc's deals with record labels and online music streaming services are blocking rivals' access to its music streaming platform, Re/code reported, citing sources. The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, started an investigation in April and had sent out questionnaires to several record labels seeking information about their dealings with Apple. The investigation did not turn up evidence of any illegal activity, but the European Union will continue to monitor the market, the report said, citing sources.

By Diane Bartz WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. senator wants two federal agencies to investigate whether Apple Inc is breaking antitrust law in how it treats music services that compete with the streaming service it launched in June. Democratic Senator Al Franken in a letter on Wednesday said that he was concerned that some Apple practices could limit choices and raise prices for consumers. The letter was sent to Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Edith Ramirez.

The Canadian singer-songwriter is pulling his music from subscription-based librairies, claiming poor sound quality. Just a few days after fellow musician Prince decided to remove his music from streaming services, Neil Young has decided to take the same steps, based on his poor opinion of the current audio quality. In a post on his Facebook page, Young explains "Streaming is the worst audio in history…. All my music, my life's work, is what I am preserving the way I want it to be.

By Diane Bartz and Julia Love WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – U.S. government antitrust regulators are looking into claims about whether Apple's treatment of rival streaming music apps is illegal under antitrust law, according to three industry sources. Apple recently launched a new music streaming service, Apple Music. It also provides the App Store platform for competing streaming services including Jango, Spotify, Rhapsody and others.

(AllHipHop News) After joining Tidal as one of the artists owners, today (July 4) Lil Wayne released his Free Weezy Album exclusively on the streaming platform. FWA is a 15-track project which features Young Jeezy, Wiz Khalifa, Cory Gunz, and others.

A free month of service is available to all new Tidal members. Users can permanently subscribe to the service for either $ 9.99 or $ 19.99 per month. The $ 19.99 tier includes high-fidelity sound.

(AllHipHop News) Apple Music may have pulled a major coup by getting Dr. Dre, Q-Tip, and others to serve as celebrity DJs for the platform’s new Beats 1 Radio, but Tidal just pulled a big move as well. According to Buzzfeed, iconic musician Prince has pulled his catalog from Apple Music, Spotify, and every other music streaming service – except Tidal.

It is not surprising Prince selected the artist-owned Tidal to host his discography. The Minneapolis native has been very vocal throughout his career about music corporations’ unfair treatment of artists. He famously wrote the word “slave” on his face in protest to Warner Bros Records.

There has not been an announcement about Prince becoming an official partner with Tidal like Jay Z, Kanye West, Beyoncé, Lil Wayne, Rihanna, and many others. The “Purple Rain” performer did stream his Freddie Gray tribute concert from Baltimore exclusively on Tidal.

Pop icon Prince has opened a new chapter in his fraught relationship with the Internet as he suddenly pulled his music from most streaming services. The sole streaming service that still carried the "Purple Rain" legend's music as of early Thursday was Tidal, which was re-launched this year by rap mogul Jay Z. It streamed much of a peace concert held by Prince in May in Baltimore in the wake of the death of an African American man in police custody.

A new music streaming service in Japan is aiming to make a dent in the world's second-largest music market, but it could face a tough challenge from the undisputed king of the sector — the good old compact disc. While digital music now eclipses CD sales in the United States, Japanese music lovers tend to be big on showing off their disc collections — e-books have also struggled — and the industry is heavily geared toward sales of physical media. This week, mobile messaging giant Line said it was going where others including Sony and games giant DeNA had failed, with a streaming service that offers unlimited access to a collection of more than 1.5 million songs for 1,000 yen (US$ 8) a month.

By Joshua Hunt TOKYO (Reuters) – Messaging app operator Line Corp launched its music streaming service in Japan on Thursday, getting a head start in the virtually untapped business for mobile music subscriptions in the world's second-biggest music market. Line's move marks the most ambitious attempt yet to reverse the declining market for digital music in Japan, where compact discs still account for more than 80 percent of total music sales. Hobbled by rights issues, foreign companies have yet to break into Japan's music streaming business.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple's iTunes helped change the way music-lovers bought their favorite songs, replacing plastic discs with digital downloads. Now the maker of iPods and iPhones wants to carve out a leading role in a revolution well under way, with a new, paid streaming-music service set to launch this summer. With millions of listeners already tuning in to streaming outlets like Pandora and Spotify, analysts and music-industry sources say Apple …News, reviews, interviews and more for top artists and albums – MSN Music
ADULT ENTERTAINMENT NEWS UPDATE:Gabby Love’s top pick! Click and enjoy!

— will be at the forefront of the annual Midem trade show starting on the French Riviera on Friday. The new boss of Deezer, France's answer to Swedish-based streaming leader Spotify, will take the stage on the first day of the event in Cannes, along with an executive from Tidal, a rival service relaunched this year by American rapper Jay-Z. It's one more sign that streaming is focusing the minds, hopes and investments of many of the 6,000 attendees of the trade show, coming from 75 countries.

Jay Z ripped into everyone who’s bashing his new business … as only he can — by uncorking a blistering freestyle in which he compared himself to the founders of Apple and Nike. The lyrical attack came during Jay’s ‘B-Sides’ concert last night,…

Predicted Sharing: High. Popular topic in the news. Gentle humor and a clear target audience. Weed reference will inhibit sharing a bit.

Humor Dimensions: recognition, cruelty, bizarre (talking robot)

Over at Top Tech Blog:

A gyroscope smaller than a human hair moves humankind one step closer to spreading our DNA to far-off words on millions of tiny, inexpensive rockets launched at the end of Earth’s run. But I might be reading too much into it.

If you think self-driving cars are scary, wait until your doctor is software. Every new medical device seems to move us in that direction. Here’s a new one for eye exams.

“A highly coherent qubit, like the spin of a single phosphorus atom in isotopically enriched silicon, can be controlled using electric fields, instead of using pulses of oscillating magnetic fields.” And thank God for that, I say.

(Reuters) – Online music streaming service Grooveshark shut down its operations as part of its settlement agreement with major record companies, according to a message posted on the website, putting an end to a four-year legal battle. Grooveshark will wipe clean all of the record companies’ copyrighted works and hand over ownership of its website, mobile apps and intellectual property, including patents and copyrights, the company said. We failed to secure licenses from rights holders for the vast amount of music on the service,” Grooveshark said. Grooveshark and its parent Escape Media Group were not immediately reachable for comment.Music News Headlines – Yahoo News

(Reuters) – Apple Inc has approached more than a dozen musicians, including British band Florence and the Machine, in an effort to sign exclusive deals for some of their music to be streamed on Beats, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The company is in talks with Florence and the Machine to give Apple limited streaming rights to a track from their album set to be released in June, Bloomberg said. Apple has also approached Taylor Swift and others about partnerships, the report said. Apple declined to comment.

This week's all-star launch of US rapper Jay Z's streaming music service may not have caused Spotify's management to lose sleep — but analysts predict tough days ahead as tech giant Apple prepares to enter the fray. After a day's silence the news was welcomed by the world leader Spotify, despite the barely veiled criticism of streaming companies like it from US superstars including Madonna and Alicia Keys at the launch in New York. Jonathan Forster, Spotify's vice president for Europe, told AFP in Stockholm that his company welcomed the artists' initiative. Spotify has come under fire from artists like British band Radiohead and US pop star Taylor Swift — who has shifted her catalogue to Tidal — protesting that Spotify does not pay artists their fair share.

NEW YORK (AP) — Since Apple shook up the music world with iTunes a little more than a decade ago, online music has exploded and become the central way many people enjoy and discover music. Internet services such as Pandora and Spotify have millions of users. Now, several high-profile musicians are behind what's being billed as the first artist-owned music-streaming service.

Hip hop musician-mogul Jay Z unveils his new streaming video company Tidal, with an all star line-up of investors on hand including Madonna, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj and Kanye West, and a read out by Alicia Keys of the company that aims to go head-to-head with competitors including Spotify and Apple’s Beats. Rough Cut (no reporter narration).

A phalanx of chart-topping stars from across genres joined forces in the loading dock of New York City’s biggest post office today to launch the newly artist-owned high-definition streaming service Tidal. Like a scene out of a pop-music version of The Avengers, 16 hit-makers – Alicia Keys, Arcade Fire’s Win Butler…RollingStone.com: News

Since US pop empress Taylor Swift pulled her catalogue from the service, Spotify has regularly trumpeted its self-reported payout (1.8 billion euros) to the music industry over the past seven years. The money has turned music executives from sceptics into believers in a model — based on free music access coupled with paid subscriptions for an ad-free service — that record labels rebuffed when Spotify started pitching it to them in 2007. "We explained we wanted to give the music away for free and they thought we were crazy," Jonathan Forster, now Spotify's vice president for Europe, told AFP before returning to the much-touted figure.

Since US pop empress Taylor Swift pulled her catalogue from the service, Spotify has regularly trumpeted its self-reported payout (1.8 billion euros) to the music industry over the past seven years. The money has turned music executives from sceptics into believers in a model — based on free music access coupled with paid subscriptions for an ad-free service — that record labels rebuffed when Spotify started pitching it to them in 2007. "We explained we wanted to give the music away for free and they thought we were crazy," Jonathan Forster, now Spotify's vice president for Europe, told AFP before returning to the much-touted figure.

According to industry sources quoted by 9to5Mac, a new iTunes music streaming service will offer curated playlists, the ability to store digital music collections in the cloud and song selections tailored to individual tastes. In May 2014 Apple acquired Beats, the company famous for its Beats by Dr Dre premium headphone range, but also for a music streaming service created by musicians for music lovers.

Competing music streaming services are beginning to discover that the best way to get consumers to sign up and to start paying a monthly subscription is to offer a free tier, too. On Wednesday, Google announced that Google Play Music subscribers can now upload and store 50,000 tracks to the cloud free of charge that they can then stream via a smartphone, tablet or even desktop whenever they've got an internet connection. The offer's interesting partly because it recognizes that older consumers already have a record collection that they value and want to listen to — therefore making its streaming and music downloading services more attractive propositions — but also because over at Apple, customers are only currently able to upload 25,000 tracks to iCloud for streaming and they have to pay $ 24.99 a year for the privilege. A year ago, that number stood at 12 million and the huge jump, according to Spotify vice president of North American advertising Brian Benedik, is because the company now offers a free tier of its streaming service across mobile devices as well as on the desktop.

As on-demand music-streaming services such as Spotify, Deezer and Rdio gouge each other’s eyes out to reach the most possible American customers, they’ve also expanded their battlegrounds throughout the world. Deezer is in 180 countries; Spotify counts more than 50. And it’s not as if they can open a local…RollingStone.com: News

Marilyn Manson is streaming his latest album, Pale Emperor, in full ahead of its January 19 release. It’s the ninth studio LP from the shock rocker, who says that it’s his best since 2000’s Holy Wood. “The album feels tied in to the fable of Mephistopheles, where life is fated. I haven’t felt this way since Holy Wood, where fate has brought things together.”RTT – MusicWebcam Performers Wanted – Earn $ 100,000 per year!

By Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google Inc has acquired streaming music service Songza, the Internet search company's latest move to play a bigger role in the fast-growing online music business. Google said on Tuesday it would explore ways to incorporate aspects of Songza into its existing streaming music service over the coming months. For now the four-year-old Songza service, which creates "expert-curated" music playlists intended to match users' activities and tastes, will remain unchanged for existing users. Google did not provide financial terms of the deal, though a report in the New York Post earlier this month citing unnamed sources said Google had offered to buy the company for $ 15 million.

Amazon began offering a streaming music service Thursday with a catalog of over one million songs. The US online giant announced "Prime Music" will be offered free and without advertising for customers of Amazon Prime — a subscription service that includes free delivery, access to online movies and books and other advantages. The Amazon music catalog is far smaller than rival offerings from services like Spotify, which has 20 million songs, but appears to aim for a niche of customers as a new benefit to the Amazon Prime service. "With Prime Music, Prime members have unlimited, ad-free access to over a million songs at no additional cost to their membership," Amazon said in a statement.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Amazon's newly announced music streaming service is yet another attempt by the company to move beyond e-commerce and infuse itself into the daily lives of Americans with an increasing number of offerings —including grocery delivery and streaming TV.

Stiff competition among technology giants for a share of the burgeoning online music streaming market has given traditional record companies a much-needed boost, a top Universal executive said Thursday. Industry behemoths such as Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft are increasingly seeking to provide for tech-savvy consumers willing to pay to stream their favourite tunes. "In the past a lot of the tech companies were not very respectful of music," Hole, who heads Universal Music Group's international business, told the Music Matters conference. The music industry has been grappling for years with how to make money from music distributed on the Internet, and streaming services such as Spotify are seen as a possible model to generate revenues.

The independent music trade organisation on Thursday gave YouTube 24 hours to withdraw threats over plans by the Silicon Valley giant to launch a music streaming service. The Worldwide Independent Network (WIN), the body that represents the global independent music community, is angry at warnings from YouTube that it will remove its members' content unless they sign up to its terms for the new service. Sources at WIN told AFP that its officials were locked in talks with YouTube and had told the Google-owned company that it wanted the demands withdrawn by the end of the week. In a statement released on Thursday — but subsequently put on hold while the discussions took place — WIN said YouTube's threats were "unnecessary and indefensible".